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Yes, for those keeping up with the news, this is in response to the threats against Emma Watson following her eloquent, beautiful, thought-provoking speech on Gender Equality. She stated the truth-she said things that needed to be said for a LONG time. And yet . . . people have come out and threatened her for it. More mind-boggling, still, others are congratulating and back-patting those who made the threats.

I'm not going to state anything as beautifully, or eloquently as Ms. Watson did, because I'm too angry. And my anger is justified. But I will use the words necessary to explain, not threats, nor belittlement, to express this feeling.

Let's make one thing clear: Feminism is not man-hating. Feminism is not wanting to be better, or superior, or "more than" a man. Feminism is wanting to be EQUAL. The term was vilified at some point, and has received a negative stigma ever since, and its time we stop that. Its the idea that feminism…

I know, it's been a while since I've posted. I can't even try to make an excuse, often enough, it's simply that I forget in the grind between being mom & getting some writing done. But today, I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed and tripped over something that couldn't be ignored (from a writer's standpoint, I mean . . . on any given day someone shares some inflammatory thing that 'can't be ignored'). She'd shared her latest blog post, entitled: I was fired over erotic romance.

Yup. So that you all understand exactly what the problem here is, I'll give you the rundown, but I've also gotten permission from my friend (fellow Curiosity Quills author, Ayden K. Morgen) to post the link to her post on the matter.

Ayden was a stellar employee, never a write up, never a complaint, had a larger workload than her coworkers, but handled it without assistance, and during myriad personal issues. Yet, she was fired because . . . wait for …

*NOTE:The following links are from Springhole.net, I am in no way affiliated with that site, or anyone connected with its creation, or maintenance.

Okay, so a lot of folks out there already understand what the term "Mary Sue" (or, in the case of male characters, Gary Stu--yes, this is a thing), means. For those who don't and are curious, but don't want to ask for fear of feeling silly here's a helpful page to give you the rundown on this.

Now, for the record, before anyone does any clicking, be aware that Mary Sues don't just appear in poorly written fanfiction (and, also for the record, the term 'poorly written' does not apply to all fanfiction--yes, I'm looking at you, people who have never even glanced at a fanfiction story [or read, literally, half of the first chapter of one fanfiction] but decided they must all be terribly written, Sue-infested rubbish). They also pop up in role playing games, and original fiction. Trust m…

Recently, I thought I'd been making strides, but then something happened that made me realize I hadn't come nearly as far as I'd believed. I received a very nice message from a book group, asking me if I'd like to add my book to their list, which was fine, but then the woman went on to talk about a possible opportunity to organize and lead book discussions.

And I froze.

That was it, that was all that happened. I thought about talking to a group of people and my heart was in my throat, my stomach twisted up in the most gods awful knot, and I had to remind myself to breathe.

Social anxiety is not just shyness, it's not "oh, you're just introverted, lots of people are." I've spent my life with people telling me to get over it, or that it's in my head, it's not a real thing. In fact, when I didn't know what it was called, I used to try to explain it away as shyness, myself, but my friends (the people who really knew me) didn't believe …